


Candy Apple Red

by Kissed_by_Circe



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Lies, Rumors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2020-03-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:53:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22868908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kissed_by_Circe/pseuds/Kissed_by_Circe
Summary: When Harry Hardyng starts spreading lies about Sansa after a failed date, it kind of backfires...Based on a tumblr post I can't find right now, about how to deal with a guy telling everyone that you had sex with him - by using it against him and telling everyone that he does really weird shit in bed.
Relationships: Harrold Hardyng/Sansa Stark, Jon Snow/Sansa Stark, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 26
Kudos: 253





	Candy Apple Red

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for all the comments and kudos 😊  
> Sansa got a few other exes (in addition to Joffrey) because girl deserves better men in her life 😊 they're Waymar Royce, Harrion Karstark, and Domeric Bolton

♛

_**i.** _

It all starts on a Friday night.

Jon’s in the Stark’s living room with Theon and Robb and Arya, playing some video game or the other, when a car stops in front of the house – a car door slamming shut and an engine roaring so loudly that he worries it might wake up Mrs. Stark – and then Sansa comes in, wearing a cute outfit and bright red lipstick and an angry flush, high on her cheekbones.

He’s supposed to concentrate on the game, on this level they’re stuck on, but his protection instinct kicks in. He knew that she went out tonight, but none of her girls would drive off like that, and the parents that drive her home when she’s babysitting never rev their engines like that, and she looks – _upset_ , that’s the right word for it. She might look as cool and casual and relaxed as always, may wear the mask she usually reserves for teachers and theatre plays, but he can see how she bites her lip and how she has to force herself to take her shoes off calmly. There’s an angry edge to the way she snaps her purse shut, his character almost falls of a cliff, and Theon curses next to him.

“How was your date?” Robb asks, his jaw clenched, and Jon’s hands tense on the controller he’s holding. He didn’t know she had a date, and he wonders why no one told him, and he wonders why Robb’s so tense about it. He wasn’t like this when she briefly dated Waymar Royce, and when she was with Karstark and Bolton for a few months each he told them to keep their mouths shut in the locker room, and nothing else, but this – this is concerning. It reminds him of how he acted around her when she was with _Joffrey_ , and he doesn’t want her to ever get hurt like that again.

_(Also – he doesn’t want Jeyne Poole, head girl and teachers’ pet, to have to keep cave and give him another alibi for another pounding)._

“You were right, Theon, he’s a real fuckboy,” she says, a shade of anger in her voice, even though she’s trying really hard to seem casual, as if it’s funny. “I’m just glad that I wore these instead of a dress.” Her hand brushes over her jeans, Arya mumbles something about how she’ll never understand why her older sister mostly wears dresses and skirts, and Jon concentrates so much on the game that he feels the plastic of the controller creak under his fingers.

“Next time I meet him I’ll punch him for you if you like,” Theon offers, partially sincerely concerned for her, partially concentrating on the monsters on-screen. Jon passes him the controller and gets up. It’s Arya’s job to hug and comfort her, or Robb’s, but they’re both busy being angry themselves, so it’s him who takes her elbow and pulls her into the kitchen to make her some hot chocolate. She hops onto the counter after a moment, and he looks at her legs out of the corner of his eye.

“If he tried anything–“ he starts, but she interrupts him. “Just let his hand wander up my thigh, but couldn’t do anything because of my pants, and leaned on me – you know how fuckboys are, they never understand it when you try to scoot away from them.” She shrugs, and he lets out a breath. “If you want me to make sure that he leaves you alone just tell me his name and I’ll take care of it,” he offers, and she crooks her head and looks at him. There’s something in her gaze he doesn’t understand, but she seems calm and she trusts him and she feels save around him, so it doesn’t really matter.

“If I’d wanted him punched in the face I would’ve done it myself,” she tells him, and they both think back to that late summer day last year when he and Gendry and Arya and Grenn taught her how to throw a punch, and how the two of them ended up looking at the stars after the others left. “But then he wouldn’t have driven me home, and I didn’t want to wait outside this seedy club alone, and if I’d called you or Robb to pick me up beforehand you would’ve punched him, too, and I didn’t want that.”

She looks down at him with wide eyes in a face full of surprise when he suddenly grabs her hand, and he looks down at their fingers, how they intertwine without either of them thinking about it. “If you told me not to, I wouldn’t have. I would never, _ever_ , do something you don’t want me to do. Okay?” he tells her, his voice low and soft. “Okay,” she whispers back, her breath ghosting over his face, and she smiles down at their hands, his calloused and scarred and dark, hers delicate and soft and pale.

“Also, I didn’t want to ruin my nails,” she murmurs, chasing away the electricity that hangs low in the air between them, and he grins up at her. “That’s why you have me, to do the dirty work.” She’s still smiling when she curls up next to him on the couch, her head resting on his shoulder, while they watch Arya butcher a group of bandits.

_**ii.** _

The rest of the weekend and Monday are quiet enough. Nobody’s really that interested in Sansa’s love life, no matter how popular she is, apart from a few glances, but still, it’s quiet until the end of football training. The North Side boys have to share a locker room with the students from the Vale, there’s an invisible line separating the two teams, white and grey tricots on the left side, blue and silver on the right, and there’s always some kind of tension in the air. Today it’s not the good kind.

Robb keeps glaring at the other team’s captain, a blond hulk named Hardyng, who’s his sworn enemy, and the way Edd’s gaze flickers between the two makes him nervous, as if he expected them to hang at each other’s throats any moment, as if he’s getting ready to hold their friend back if he has to. He doesn’t know if Hardyng’s done anything to rib Robb recently, if he’s badmouthed Robb to his secret-not-so-secret crush or if he tried to get him into trouble with a teacher, _again_ , and he thinks about asking Edd once they’re out of earshot if there’s something he needs to know when Hardyng opens his mouth, still grinning that stupid grin of his, and tells one of his friends loudly, very loudly, that they’ll totally beat them during their next match.

“Maybe Stark’s sister will give me a big, fat kiss before the game, she’s really good at that,” he brawls, and the locker room erupts. Jon somehow manages to catch Robb’s fist in his own hand before the realisation dawns on him, and Grenn throws himself between the two teams while fists are clenched and jaws locked and the adrenaline spikes. “If you say anything about my sister, I’ll–“ Robb doesn’t finish the sentence, letting it hang in the air like the threat it is, and Hardyng grins, his friends in his back apparently giving him all the courage he needs. “I was only talking about a harmless little kiss, that’s nothing compared to what we did after our date last week.”

If he wasn’t so busy holding Robb back he’d be punching Hardyng now, but somehow Jon manages to keep relatively calm, mostly because he knows that nothing happened between them, not even a kiss. “As if she’d do anything with a fuckboy like you,” he growls, and Edd, bless his soul, throws in a “she’d never kiss a guy with that many STDs,” for which he is thankful, but Hardyng already has his next shot prepared, and delivers it with another stupid grin. “Of course, no one would expect sweet and proper Sansa Stark to do it on a first date, but then, no one would think that she has a butterfly tattoo under her tit, either–“

He doesn’t get to say more, he doesn’t _need_ to say more, because Jon knows exactly what the blond boy is talking about. It’s not a butterfly but a dragonfly. He knows because she asked him about his own tattoos, and he helped her choose a parlour to get it done at. He was there when she got it, he held her hand and didn’t look at the pale stretch of skin under her chest where it spreads its wings.

It’s just a moment – the flashing memory of that appointment, the dawning realisation that Hardyng had to see her shirtless to know of the tattoo, Robb’s arm slipping through his fingers.

Whatever Hardyng wanted to add dies in his throat, because Robb’s pushing him against the wall, the Karstark boys are trying to wrestle their captain back and the guys from the Vale seem ready to snap. The air is humming with tension and adrenaline and the scent of sweat, and they are one wrong move, one threat, one more taunting remark away from all hell breaking lose. He wishes Bolton were here with his pale eyes and cold face and calmness radiating from him, but their former captain’s away at college, and so it’s Jon who has to defuse the situation.

His blood is boiling because _Hardyng saw Sansa’s tattoo_ and he’s close to punching the lights out of him the way Robb surely wants to, but he’s the cool one, and he doesn’t want to be responsible for a fight breaking out between two dozen teenage boys, and so he holds up his hands instead of thrusting them in the other boy’s abdomen. “Okay guys, let’s not overreact,” he tries, and suddenly all eyes are on him. “This is between Hardyng, Stark and me, okay? We’ll sort this out between ourselves, so go–“

He lets out a deep breath when most of the others start filing out, slowly and glancing at each other suspiciously, and he clasps Robb’s shoulders, whispering “He’s not worth it” in his friend’s ear. Robb shoves Hardyng against the wall one last time, but then he relaxes and takes a step back. He leaves without looking back, and the cocky blond boy regains his posture after a moment, and leaves with a huff and a muttered curse that Jon ignores.

“We’re so deep in shit,” Edd murmurs next to him, his face even more concerned than usual, and Jon quickly pulls his tee on. He hopes that Robb’s not waiting for Hardyng outside, but when he reaches the parking lot, his friend’s leaning against his car, cigarette hanging from one hand and phone in the other. “I’ll talk to her, make her tell me what really happened,” he mutters, and Jon’s not sure if she’ll really tell him, but he doesn’t say anything.

**_iii._ **

Whatever Sansa told Robb must’ve been enough to keep him from doing more, but it’s not enough to keep Jon from worrying. He knows how she is, how good of an actress she can be, and he’s not sure if she lied to Robb to keep him from getting in trouble. “I meant what I said,” he mumbles, not looking up from the papers in his lap, and she lets out a confused hum from where she’s lying next to him.

He doesn’t really understand how she can read like this, laying on her back and holding his essay over her face - she told him that she has strong arms from braiding her hair, and that he should shut up (but with a teasing grin) if he wants her to proofread his homework – and he has to keep himself from looking at her. Her hair is spread around her head like a halo, she worries her lip between her teeth in her concentration, and every time she moves, her crop top rides up higher, revealing the outline of the tattoo hidden beneath it.

If she’s trying to kill him, she’s doing a really good job.

“What do you mean?” she asks, and rolls around, unintentionally rolling closer to him. She smells of some kind of lotion and flowers, and he has to concentrate really hard on what she says. “What I said after your, um, date, about not doing anything stupid or something you don’t want, I meant that. If you don’t want me to do anything with Hardyng then I won’t, no matter what he did to you.”

Her smile is soft, and when she pushes herself up from the mattress he thinks for a moment that she’ll lean in and kiss him, but she just gets up, stretches – the top rides up even higher, and he forces himself to look down at his notes – and goes over to her desk, leaning over it to highlight something. He can’t see her face from where he’s sitting on her bed, but he still likes the view, likes how casually she draws arrows on the paper and crosses out words. He likes how relaxed she is around him, how familiar they are sometimes.

“I’ve told you everything,” she says, “and more than I told Robb. Why are you asking?” She glances at him with her eyes narrowed, and he fidgets with the notes he’s supposed to be studying. Every time he closes his eyes, he sees nothing but pale skin and inky wings, and the mere thought of Hardyng touching her, of his hands on her skin is enough to make his blood boil. When Royce kissed her, when Karstark had his hand in her back jean pocket, when Bolton pulled her into his lap he looked away, but this is different, because this time reminds him of Joffrey and the bruises he left on her wrist, and he’s pretty sure that she didn’t giggle or smile when Hardyng put his hand on her leg.

“He told us, that is, the footballers, about your tattoo, and – Sansa, please, just tell me, did he pull up your shirt or anything like that?” “No” She shakes her head and cards a hand through her hair, and she looks just so _tired_ that Jon wants nothing more than pull her down on the bed and cuddle with her until she falls asleep. “I don’t know how he found out about that, maybe he saw it on my Insta or something, but no, it was a hand on my thigh and an arm around my shoulder and nothing more.” “Okay,” he breathes, but he’s still worried about her. “Can I do anything?” “Hold me, play with my hair…” He’s not sure if there’s a teasing shade in her voice, so he adds “do your math homework?”, and she grins, even if it’s a tired one.

She falls asleep next to him, and he goes through her math homework, making sure everything’s right.

_**iv.** _

He doesn’t know how it escalates, just that it does.

Maybe Sansa told him to fuck off again, maybe Robb said or did something that annoyed him, but on Wednesday morning the whole school, or at least most of the senior classes, talks about Sansa Stark and Harry Hardyng and what allegedly happened on their date. The rumours wary from person to person, but most people heard that they went on a date, and that they did it, and that Sansa’s either a slut or a frigid bitch, according to Hardyng, who somehow manages to sell different stories without contradicting himself.

And Sansa – she says nothing, at least not at first. She just goes about her day as usual, and tells him and Robb and Arya not to get into trouble, and stops sitting next to Myranda Royce, who’s the one that set them up in the first place. She was always a lady, and she’s handling it with so much dignity that Jon can’t help but be impressed, and confused, because someone _has_ to stop Hardyng from spreading rumours about her like that. He wracks his brain trying to come up with a solution for this, thinks about asking Sansa if he can’t at least threaten Hardyng, when someone whispers Sansa’s name behind him.

He doesn’t really know the two girls sitting behind him in biology, but he’s sure that one of them said _‘Sansa Stark’_ , and he knows that he really shouldn’t eavesdrop, but he does. “… I’m telling you, she said that his dick was so tiny she barely found it!” “Are you _sure_ it was her?” “Of course I’m sure, when I came out of the stall, she was standing at the sinks with one of the Mormont girls, don’t ask me which one.” “I can’t believe it, Sansa Stark of all people …”

He can’t concentrate on the class, and when he enters the cafeteria, he almost has a stroke. Wylla Manderly’s sitting on a table, holding court like her older sister did before her, and while her voice isn’t as commanding as sister’s, it definitely is louder than Wynafryd’s when she tells her squad about Sansa’s _‘night with Harry Hardyng’_. Jon sits down on his usual table, pushing Alys’ leg of the bench and earning a gentle punch on the arm, and nods along to Cerwyn’s story while listening to what Wylla is telling her squad and, by extension, half the cafeteria.

It startles him when Sansa plops down on the bench right next to him, their thighs pressed together, and he brushes the hair from her face before he realises what he’s doing, but she just smiles at him. “Overheard some girls in my bio class gossiping, they said that they heard you–“ he mumbles, making sure that no one else hears, and she leans into him, her hair brushing over his shoulder, her breath ghosting over his skin. A bit closer and his lips might brush her ear. “I talked to Harry,” she says back, and when he opens his mouth to say something, she puts her hand on his thigh to stop him. “I asked him to take it back, to say that it was just a rumour, a prank, but he didn’t, so I … decided to feed the gossip mill.”

“You … told someone that he has a tiny dick and made sure that someone overheard? You’re even more brilliant than I thought.” They smile at each other, while Wylla goes on and on about how Harry must’ve failed geography, and Sansa pulls out her phone, showing him the text she’s sent Myranda Royce with a big grin, and he laughs. “I hope the _damage_ to your _confidence_ is not permanently, it’d be a shame if you had to suffer just because of some guy’s _impotence_ ,” he jokes, quoting her, and her hand slightly squeezes his thigh when she laughs. It’s so intimate it almost hurts, and he wishes that they could stay like this forever.

_**v.** _

Wylla and Jeyne Poole and Beth and, in the end, even _Arya_ drop hints and stage whisper and let others overhear when they talk about how horrible Hardyng’s in bed, and when none other than Myranda Royce, the uncrowned queen of the Vale girls, makes a remark about how Sansa complained about his poor dental hygiene, everyone’s convinced that Sansa and Harry went on a date, made out, maybe a bit more, and then she went home because he’s gross or clumsy or can’t get it up.

“Gods, I hope he’ll carve in soon and tell everyone that he lied,” Jon mumbles around some fries, and Sansa nods absently, pondering over her milkshake and delicately picking at her own fries with her fingers. “Do you really think he’ll come clean, post a video on his insta where he apologises like a disgraced YouTuber?” she wonders, playing with the straw and turning to face him. She’s pulled her leg up on the bench and her knee is halfway on his thigh, and he puts his hand on it without thinking, rubbing soothing circles into her pale skin.

On the other side of their booth, Robb tries to shove a whole burger into his mouth by unhinging his jaw like a snake, and fails miserably.

“I don’t know,” he admits, and she sighs. “I probably know him better than you in some ways, I know that he doesn’t give up easily, but that’s it. I can’t really put myself in his position.” “That’s because you, unlike him, are not a fuckboy,” she tells him matter-of-factly, and he smiles at her a bit. “If you were a fuckboy, I wouldn’t be friends with you.” “Seconded,” Robb calls out, and almost chokes on his burger, and Jon squeezes her knee a bit. “Then I’m glad that I’m not a fuckboy,” he whispers, while Robb wipes sauce from his chin (and cheeks, and nose, and fingers, and–). When they leave, he notices the red spots his fingers left on her pale thigh, but she only smiles at him when he holds the car door open for her.

_**vi.** _

That night, Hardyng’s insta includes a picture of lipstick stains on his hips, almost low enough to violate their guidelines.

_It’s candy apple red. It’s the shade only Sansa wears. It’s a declaration of war. And she accepts._

**_vii._ **

“It’s a dragonfly, you fucking idiot.”

The words are out of his mouth before he realises what he’s said, and suddenly the air around him is thick with silence. Everyone’s staring at him wide-eyed – the guy that talked about Sansa’s tattoo as if he’d seen it and the girl he tried to impress with his story, Ysilla Royce, the always gracious hostess that just wanted to get something from the fridge, Hardyng, who looks like he didn’t expect to see him here, Marsella Waynwood and Mychel Redfort and Mya stone and a few others playing a drinking game at the breakfast bar, and Sansa, staring at him like a deer caught in the headlights.

“What?” The drunk guy, which Jon only now recognises as the brother of one of Hardyng’s friends, seems confused by his correction, and his gaze flickers over to where Hardyng’s standing in the open door, his hand on Myranda’s hip until she shoves it away. People whisper and point – the kitchen is getting fuller and fuller, and somewhere in the living room the music is turned down. Jon doesn’t really care what they all do, his gaze fixed on Sansa and the paleness of her knuckles where she grips the counter and the way she looks Hardyng in the eyes, daring him to say something, _anything_.

If people weren’t watching he’d go over to her and take her hand and ask her what he should do, how she wants him to act in this situation where her body is the subject, but he doesn’t want to give people the wrong idea, doesn’t want to make this worse than it already is. Not without her giving him a hint.

Drunk guy, Templeton, or Hunter, or Sunderland, or whatever his name is, is still waiting for an answer, some girls are stage whispering, asking each other how _he_ knows what that tattoo looks like, and he wishes that he’d never said anything when Sansa speaks up. “He right. It’s not a butterfly tattoo, it’s a dragonfly. Not that you’d know the difference, right, Harry?” Now everyone’s eyes are on her, but she somehow manages to seem confident and at ease, just like she does on stage, as if it weren’t a room full of people gossiping and spreading lies about her sex life, as if this wasn’t one of those moments that define the course of history, as small and ordinary and personal it might be.

“But you didn’t see it, didn’t you? Maybe I should show you, show everyone here what it looks like–“ She pulls her top up high enough to show off the tattoo and a part of her bra, and now Jon takes a step towards her, his hands raised to pull down the hem again if she lets him, her name on his tongue. People gasp, Marcella Waynwood whispers “He’s right, that’s a dragonfly–“ and he allows himself to say _Sansa_ , softly, gently, caringly, trying to get her to listen to him and to not make a scene she might regret later.

She looks at him with fire in her eyes, and says the words that will probably haunt Hardyng for the rest of his life in the form of a video someone’s taking.

_(Her crop top is in place again, and the guy holding the phone is clearly more interested in getting the drama on film than her skin, so he’ll let it slide – for now)._

“Yes, Jon, say my _name_.” Her voice has a steel edge to it, and he doesn’t understand where she’s going or what exactly she wants from him, so he repeats her name, adds a tentative _sweetling_ when the corners of her mouth curl upwards in a snarky grin, and lets her take his hand, not caring about what people might think as long as she’s taking control of the narrative. “Are you fucking Snow now? He’s not worth it, you know, he’s not nearly as good as I am–“ Hardyng tries to cut her off from whatever she’s going to say, realising that this isn’t going in a direction he’ll like, but Sansa smiles at him, both sweetly and deadly, just for a split second, before she goes in for the kill.

“I’m not going to talk about what Jon _does_ , but, you know, when I make out with Jon,” a few people gasp and a few others hush, “then he calls me _sweetling_ , and _sweet girl_ , and _Sansa_.” Jon’s confusion only grows, but he’ll back her up, no matter what she’s going to say now.

_(If she lied and told people that she makes him wear a pink apron and do her homework he’ll say ‘it’s more of a washed-out red’ with a straight face)._

“He says _normal_ things, and I’ll take normal dirty talk over the weird shit you said any day. I mean, who the fuck – why would you call me _Anya_?”

Everyone’s silent and confused, but someone gasps – Marsella Waynwood, from his math class. She whispers when she asks “what the fuck, Harry?!”, but then she almost yells. “She’s our grandmother–“ and suddenly everyone understands. Jon doesn’t hear Harry’s stuttered explanation or his cousin’s screams or the other guests’ gossiping, all he feels is Sansa’s breath on his neck when she leans into him. “Get me out of here, please,” she mumbles, and she doesn’t have to ask twice.

**_viii._ **

“Thanks for playing along,” she whispers in the car, her hand in his hair, and he asks her half a dozen times if she’s sober and how many cocktails she’s had before he lets her kiss him. “Thanks for pretending like I’m not a clueless virgin,” he whispers back, his fingertips ghosting over the dragonfly’s wings. “If you’ll finally allow me to seduce you I could help you with that,” she murmurs between kisses, and he can feel her grin against his mouth.

“Guys please don’t do this to me, do you even _know_ how expensive a professional car cleaning is?” Robb whines through the car window.

_**ix.** _

“So, how was your date?” Alys asks three weeks later on a Monday morning with a shit-eating grin, and Jon smiles back. “A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell,” he says with a hum, and Robb’s grateful expression says it all.

**Author's Note:**

> [Find me on Tumblr 💜](https://kissed-by-circe.tumblr.com/)


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